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Saturday, 11 April 2015

ARC Review ~ The Truth About Jack by Jody Gehrman

eARC received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest reviewRelease Date: April 14th 2015Publisher: Entangled PublishingDescription:Dakota McCloud has just been accepted into a prestigious art school. Soon she'll leave behind the artists' colony where she grew up―hippie dad, tofu since birth, yurt―and join her boyfriend and best friend on the East Coast. It was the plan…until Dakota finds out her boyfriend and best friend hooked up behind her back.

Hurt and viciously betrayed, Dakota pours out her heart on a piece of paper, places it in a bottle, and hurls it into the ocean. But it doesn't quite go where she expects…

Jack Sauvage finds the bottle washed up on the shore and responds to Dakota's letter. Except what if his straight-laced life doesn’t jive with the free-spirited girl he’s only seen from afar? As Jack creates a persona he believes she’ll love, they slowly fall for each other with each new letter. Now Jack is trying to find a way to make this delicate, on-paper romance happen in real life…without revealing his deception.

My OpinionSo I took a punt on this book. It was a bit of a gamble but it sounded like an okay read. However, it ended up irritating the hell out of me.The Truth About Jack revolves around the main character, Dakota, having thrown a bottle with a letter into the sea after finding out her boyfriend cheats on her with her best friend. It's then found by a guy (Jack) who writes back to her but uses a false name. I thought this part of the book was interesting and slightly different. The letters between the two were cute, but that was about it.Everything else in the book felt incredibly immature. The characters were childish--Dakota especially--and also under developed. We were told a lot of things about both of them with regards to their past, yet there was never any emotional connection that led me to engage with them. It was just statements that felt liked they'd been placed because someone said there needed to be more background information. Moreover, the character's reactions to all of the problems was irritating. They felt rather blasé about everything if I'm honest, like the problems were nothing. Dakota's moods, attitudes, and reactions to the amount of guys supposedly wanting her did my head in. Also none of the secondary characters were developed besides coming off as creeps. Similarly, Jack's character was weak. He was a wimp when it came to saying things yet he'd fight Miles? I just don't buy it. Also, the fact that he was lying put me of liking him.This was just one of those books that had me rolling my eyes. The whole thing could have been avoided with a single conversation yet it was dragged out to unnecessary lengths. For me unrealistic. Sure, some parts were cute and made me smile, but it wasn't enough to get over the annoyances.Overall, this was a gamble. It was an easy read that's probably suited to a younger audience. However, for me it was childish, unbelievable, and lacked development. Things were dragged out too long and I found myself getting more annoyed the more I read.

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